Winston Groom is the author of Forrest Gump and, most recently, Shiloh, 1862. His forthcoming book, The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight, will be published in November.It is no news that the age of political correctness and revisionist history is upon us, and nowhere is it more apparent than in the subject of slavery and the American Civil War. In the past half-dozen years, literature has appeared condemning the Southern general Robert E. Lee as a traitor, slaver, and racist. In Memphis, the city council has voted to remove the names of Confederate leaders from its city parks, and similar efforts calling for the removal of statues and other symbols commemorating the old Confederacy are in progress across the South.

Thomas Fleming

Credit: Wiki Commons/HNN staff.The United States of America trembled on the brink of her greatest tragedy -- a civil war that would kill a million young men. Seven Southern states had seceded after Abraham Lincoln was elected president as an anti-slavery Republican, with scarcely a single Southern vote. They had been unmoved by his inaugural address, in which he warned them that he had taken a solemn oath to preserve the Union -- and reminded them of their shared heritage, witnessed by the numberless patriot graves in every state.

Thomas Fleming

Via Tumblr.From my early days as an historian, I have always looked for insights that explain the past on a deeper level than a series of merely exciting or disturbing events. I still vividly remember my first experience. I was working on a book about the year 1776 and had file drawers crammed with research. But I felt the need for something fundamental, a pattern of thought that drew the narrative together in a new, more meaningful way.Suddenly the words swarmed into my mind: 1776: Year of Illusions. It was my first encounter with what I now call a disease in the public mind.

Thomas Fleming

Illustration for 1853 edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Credit: Wiki Commons.Today’s readers of Uncle Tom’s Cabin have no idea that there was a real Uncle Tom. Neither did the readers of the 1850s. His name was Josiah Henson. He was born a slave in Maryland in 1789. Harriet Beecher Stowe admitted that his story was part of the inspiration for her novel. But she never adequately explained why her fictional Uncle Tom was so different from the real one.

Thomas Fleming

This article is adapted from Thomas Fleming’s new book, A Disease In the Public Mind – A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War. Part two of a three-part series (read parts one and two). Thomas Jefferson Randolph. Credit: Monticello.

Thomas Fleming

Incendie de la Plaine du Cap. - Massacre des Blancs par les Noirs, 1833.This article is adapted from Thomas Fleming’s new book, A Disease In the Public Mind – A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War. Part two of a three-part series (read part one here).

Thomas Fleming

George Washington at Yorktown, by Auguste Couder.
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This article is adapted from Thomas Fleming’s new book, A Disease In the Public Mind – A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War.

Thomas Fleming

A 1779 fifty-five dollar note printed by the Continental Congress. Via Wiki Commons."Welcome to the Continental Congress.""I'm not sure what you mean by that, Mr. President.""I mean we're on our way to a visit to the people who almost lost the American Revolution -- if we continue to try to maintain the illusion that our money has any value when the interest rate for borrowing it is zero and we try to solve our mounting debt problems by printing it by the billions.""Was that what happened to the Continental Congress?""Congress printed dollars at a fantastic rate in 1776. It seemed to work beautifully. They shipped it to the various states and they built forts, warships and mustered new regiments for the Continental Army. We were a dynamic new nation -- until we lost a couple of battles. Suddenly people started thinking that if we lost the war, these pieces of paper would be worth nothing. NOTHING. That's when our dollars started to depreciate.""How could you tell that was happening?"

Thomas Fleming

Credit: Wiki Commons/HNN staff."Mr. Madison, call your office!""I beg your pardon?"I’m only half kidding. As if we didn’t have enough trouble holding the country together, a law professor at university located in our national capital recently published an article in a major newspaper, entitled 'Let’s Give Up on the Constitution.'" "Why does he think we should do that?""He quotes Tom Jefferson, who believed every constitution should expire after a single generation. The professor doesn’t seem to realize he’s succumbing to Tom’s wackiest idea, 'The Earth Belongs to the Living.' Tom picked it up in France, along with his consuming love for French radicals who killed tens of thousands of innocent people to purify their revolution.""What else did 'The Earth Belongs to the Living' include?"